Ian Somerhalder Flushed Nikki Reed’s Birth Control Down the Toilet When He Wanted Her to Get Pregnant (Update)

UPDATE (September 22, 2017 6:00 p.m. EST): On Friday afternoon, after the release of a podcast interview in which Ian Somerhalder shared that he threw away his wife Nikki Reed's birth control without asking her, Reed addressed the ensuing controversy on Twitter.

"WOMEN'S RIGHTS MATTER, so please don't use false narratives to highlight issues that are truly important!" she wrote in one tweet. "We should be talking about these things, but using a funny interview between married ppl & twisting it to perpetuate gossip is irresponsible," she added in a second. A third tweet included a Notes app screenshot that read in part, "Don't talk about consent to me. And lastly, how dare you try to cast a dark shadow over one of the happiest most memorable days of my life - you're not only disrespecting me but my baby."

Ian Somerhalder and Nikki Reed reportedly decided it was time to become parents when they were riding a vacation high. Yes, the origin of Bodhi Soleil, the couple’s nearly two-month-old daughter, can apparently be traced to a trip to Barcelona on which Somerhalder dumped his wife’s birth control down the toilet.

“We decided that we wanted to have children together, and it was just time,” The Vampire Diaries star explained in an appearance on the podcast "Dr. Berlin’s Informed Pregnancy," according to The Cut. “But unbeknownst to poor Nikki, she didn’t realize that I was going to go in her purse and take out her birth control. By the way, it was the beginning of the pack, so I had to pop all those suckers out. It is a lot of work, especially after a little bit of sangria.”

The idea of a husband disposing of his wife’s birth control without her consent is unsettling to say the least. Somerhalder added that a friend of the couple's took a video of him flushing the pills down the toilet and that Reed is in this video, "freaking out." "I’ve never seen this," Reed replied. "Was I drunk? Was I coherent?"

The new parents have been vocal about their commitment to their growing family. Before she gave birth, Reed announced her and her husband's plan to take a "month of silence" after their daughter arrived without any publicity, social media, or apparently communication with the outside world. Reed toldFit Pregnancy and Baby they wanted their first month to involve “just the three of us, no visitors, and we’re turning off our phones too, so there’s no expectation for us to communicate. Otherwise, every five minutes it would be, ‘How are you feeling? Can we have a picture?’ You don’t get those first 30 days back, and we want to be fully present.”

Somerhalder didn’t quite make it a full month after Bodhi was born on July 25 before returning to social media. On August 21, his first post-baby Instagram featured Reed’s Fit Pregnancy and Baby cover and a caption that read in part, "Thank you for being my partner in this life and thank you for inspiring not just me but all others who read, hear or see what your soul gives us."

That's sweet. But you should still ask the next time you want to dispose of birth control pills that aren’t yours.